Pre-Mortem
Assume a project failed, then prevent the causes before they happen
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 100%
A pre-mortem reverses the usual post-mortem. Instead of asking what might go wrong, the team assumes that a future project has already failed and describes what that failure looks like. This framing forces people to define both failure and success, then identify the most likely causes and the sequence of actions or omissions that would create the bad outcome. Each material cause becomes an input to planning: the team adds meetings, owners, safeguards, or other preventive actions before execution begins. Cohn's partnership example shows the mechanism. Lack of communication appeared as a predicted cause, so the startup leader scheduled recurring cross-company project meetings. Those meetings kept participants aligned and built relationships that helped when the work later became difficult.
Origin
Extracted from The Tim Ferriss Show, where Cohn describes using pre-mortems with coaching clients.
Core principles
- 01Assumed failure exposes risks more clearly than vague worry
- 02Defining failure also clarifies success
- 03Likely causes should become preventive actions
- 04Prevention is easier before urgency crowds out coordination
How to run it
- 1
Assume failure
Place the team at a defined future point and state that the project has failed or missed its promise.
Pro tip Use a concrete horizon such as six months.
Watch out Do not soften the prompt to a generic question about what could go wrong.
- 2
Describe the failed state
Specify what the failed outcome looks like so success and failure are not ambiguous.
- 3
Build the failure recipe
List the likely causes, ingredients, and steps that would produce that outcome.
Pro tip Include ordinary omissions such as skipped communication, not only dramatic events.
- 4
Design prevention
Turn each plausible cause into a safeguard, operating habit, owner, or scheduled action.
Pro tip Put preventive meetings on the calendar before the team feels too busy for them.
In the wild
A startup preparing a partnership with a larger company identified lack of communication as a likely cause of failure. The startup leader proactively placed recurring all-team project meetings on the calendar and insisted on keeping them even when participants felt busy.
→ The partners stayed aligned and had stronger relationships when the work became difficult.
Common mistakes
Asking only what could go wrong
The weaker prompt does not force a concrete definition of failure or a causal recipe.
Listing risks without safeguards
The value comes from converting predicted causes into preventive actions before execution.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for projects, partnerships, and launches where coordination risks can be anticipated before execution.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal as a substitute for action when the important risks are already known and controlled.
From the transcript
“let's assume that this doesn't go well this fails in some way or doesn't fulfill the promise what are the things that we did that…”
“let's assume six months from now this project has failed what does that look like and then what are the most likely causes”
“if you were to create the perfect recipe for producing this failure what would the steps look like what would the ingredients be”
From the episode
#539: Alisa Cohn on Prenups for Startup Founders, How to Reinvent Your Career, the Importance of "Pre-Mortems," and the Three Selves
Alisa Cohn